


In Medias Res

by TaleWorthTelling



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Open Relationships, Polyamory, Sam/Team America (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 00:48:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2329151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleWorthTelling/pseuds/TaleWorthTelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharon accidentally on purpose picks Sam up in a bar. They talk, they laugh, they have sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Medias Res

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bactaqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bactaqueen/gifts).



> This is pure, meritless wish fulfillment to get over writer's block. It worked.  
> In this story it's presumed that Sam has already had several negotiation talks regarding his open relationship with Team America and they've worked out what's okay and what's frowned upon. What takes place here is, therefore, totally cool with everyone involved: Sharon knows through the grapevine that there are others, and the others are cool with the potentiality of Sam having a surplus of feelings that he occasionally needs to spread around. It's complicated.

She’s looking into her drink like if she glares hard enough it’ll cough up the answers she wants to know. Finally she sighs and puts the glass down heavily, amber liquor sloshing up to the edge but surface tension pulling it back before it drips. She’s like that, he thinks: churning inside, some earthly force keeping it locked in, locked down, and never spilling. He imagines one glistening drop trailing down the side of the glass, gaining momentum until it hits the shiny tabletop, its progress trackable, inevitable, and its termination sudden and intense nonetheless.

She irritably grabs a tissue-thin napkin to wipe off the fine layer of condensation that’s gathering, shaking her wet fingers out afterward and rubbing her palm on her jeans.

“Rough night?” he asks, sliding onto a nearby stool, but not the one right next to her; maybe she doesn’t _want_ the company. He’s not trying to pick her up, just trying to see if he can distract her for a little while, if she wants it. Hell, he wouldn’t mind the distraction either: it’s hard hitching yourself to a couple of walking angst magnets. He’ll go home to them, feed them, support them, love them, kick their asses when they need him to, but he’s never claimed to be perfect and they’ve never claimed to own him. It’s why their arrangement works for all of them.

Still, it’s not a pick-up. It’s just the kind thing to do when someone looks at a drink like that.  
She barks a laugh. “Rough year.”

“Ooh,” he breathes out lowly, almost laughing but mostly clucking his tongue in sympathy. “I get that. I’ve had something like it myself.”

“I highly doubt—” She turns finally to look up at him. Her eyes don’t widen in shock or anything, but she appraises him. “Oh. You’re the bird guy. Never mind. Maybe you do get it.”

The bird guy? Seriously?

She swirls the liquor around the glass, sighs, and sets it down undrunk. “Listen, work kind of sucked, you know? And I just came from my aunt’s and that didn’t go well at all. And my landlord is being a pill. The thing that those three events have in common is that none of them involve the sexual stress release I decided I needed when you sat down. If you’re game, I’m game. Check your baggage with your pants.”

Sam’s never had an offer quite like that before, and he’s heard a few. His face heats up, but he plays it cool. It’s not like she can see him blushing. “Like, now?”

Maybe not that cool.

She smiles at him, and it’s surprisingly genuine. “The soonest approximation of now that’s anywhere but this bar.”

Sam’s place is nearby, but he can’t just jump into bed with a woman he doesn’t really know, even if there’s something definitely magnetic going on. They walk instead of taking a cab so they’ll have time to talk, to think it through, and definitely to get the scant alcohol out of her system.

She spends the walk over complaining emphatically about bureaucracy and protocols and doesn’t apologize.

“So that’s what you’ve been up to since …”

“Since SHIELD collapsed into ruin after my bosses tried to assassinate my other boss and Captain America? And then take over the world like a disease?”

Sam raises his eyebrows, looking down at the keys in his hand as he lets himself in. They’re standing on his front porch and he almost wants to stay out here; she looks so pretty in the moonlight and there’s something soothing about the masking nature of the dark. He opens the door anyway. “Yeah, after that.”

“Well, finding work isn’t the problem,” she says, shimmying inelegantly out of her white jacket and dropping it onto a table. “Finding work that doesn’t make me want to tear my hair out, change my name, and move to a small island nation is the problem.”

“How long were you with SHIELD?” he asks, curious despite himself. He pulls a jug of water out of the fridge and fills two glasses. Her fingers linger on his when he hands her one.

“That’s classified,” is her automatic answer, before realization settles in and she rolls her eyes. “No, it’s not, is it? It’s on the Internet.”

“I still have dial-up.” He keeps his face perfectly straight.

She narrows her eyes. “No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” He had, actually, before he came home one day to find brand spankin’ new cables installed and a note that said _you’re welcome_. He double-checked his entire place that night and slept sitting up by the door, old instincts jarred loose, but eventually he warmed up to the idea of lightning fast YouTube videos of baby animals at his fingertips whenever he wanted (and also the many Captain America Vines that seemed to be sent by angels). He does, however, make sure to look at least two porn sites once or twice a week if he gets the chance, since he’s certain that his Internet activities are being monitored by someone. (Variety, especially, is important, and he’s very equal opportunity. But most of it is guy-on-guy. Something about that Internet stuff just can’t do it for him like a real live woman. He hopes whoever is keeping track of him appreciates his taste.)

“Coming up on ten years,” she says, “but not quite.” She sounds disappointed about that. He doesn’t blame her.

Also he’s one-fifth responsible for her abrupt termination, depending on how you look at it. Maybe he can make an attempt at making it up to her.

He can start with dinner.

He rifles through his cabinets and fridge looking for staples, since he hasn’t been shopping in a while. (Steve does the shopping normally by way of an apology for his super-soldier metabolism, so sometimes Sam forgets to go to the store when the crew of super-soldiers and assassins is out of town. His grandma used to tell him that he ate like a horse, but she’d never met an Avenger.) He finds pasta in the cabinet, a bag of spinach in the freezer, a jar of what claims to be alfredo sauce under the sink. He can cook, but he keeps stuff like this around for when you just need food and any will do. There’s a half-empty bottle of white wine in the back of the fridge; he sniffs it and it’s fine. He takes a hit before setting it onto the counter and grabbing a couple of pots.

She snorts behind him, closer than he’d thought she was. She reaches an arm around him to snag the bottle and bring it to her lips over his shoulder. A drop trickles from the corner of her mouth, shiny and wet, sharp and fruity-smelling from this intimate distance. He thinks about licking it away, but her pink tongue snakes out and swipes it quick as a flash. She grins mischievously before setting the bottle down and backing away, sweeping a lingering hand over his hip as she goes.

“Why the food?” she asks, knocking her shoes off with her toes, not even untying them.

“You looked hungry.” He pauses in reaching for the handle for the faucet, wondering if that’s one of those things that you probably shouldn’t say to a woman. Oh, well. He turns on the water to fill the pot.

They don’t make small talk while he throws together their humble little meal. Instead he talks about his aunts teaching him to cook, because he seems to be physically incapable of talking to a pretty girl and not liberally sprinkling his conversations with family anecdotes.

As he’s turning off the stove and grabbing a couple of plates, she reaches into her jacket for her wallet and pulls out a picture. “This is my aunt.”

There’s a beautiful dark-haired woman with fierce eyes and red lips staring at him. She’s middle-aged, but she’s gorgeous … and familiar. He’s seen her before, and not just in the similar face mirrored before him.

“She’s one of the reasons I joined SHIELD. She’s older now, but … I always liked this photo. It’s intense. She didn’t always let that show, didn’t want to give up the game and let on how smart she really was. ‘It’s a blessing to be underestimated if you have the will to stomach it,’ she’d say. I don’t. But I can appreciate the sentiment.”

He looks closer. Maybe … Yes. Steve has a picture just like this one, in black and white and a couple of decades younger, in his own wallet.

This is Peggy.

“You’re Sharon Carter,” he says. He’s heard about her from Natasha. He just hadn’t connected the name with the agent he’d seen a few times.

“Romanoff told me she didn’t kiss and tell.”

As much as he appreciates that image, he shakes his head. “She just said that she’d been trying to set you up with Steve for a while and it wasn’t looking promising.”

“Ha, yeah, well.” She stretches her arms over her head and blows out a breath, rolling her neck back. She glares moodily at nothing on the ceiling for a moment and doesn’t finish the thought. “I do, though.”

“Do what?”

“Kiss and tell. I don’t mind. Where are the indomitable Captain America and his cohorts, anyway?”

“Some Avengers mission.”

“Aren’t you an Avenger now?”

“Call this my off-season. I’ve been Avenging my butt off for seven months straight. I’m taking some me time.”

“I’m honored to be included,” she says dryly.

He pulls out a chair at the table for her and they eat in a companionable silence.

He’s topping off their glasses of wine, dinner finished, when she asks, “Is this a date? Because I don’t remember asking you out, but it feels like a date.”

He finishes pouring before he answers. “Not for nothing, but I’m not really a jump into bed kind of guy. I can appreciate it. I just … like a little investment. A little connection.”

“We’re connected now?”

“Well, I like you. And food being a communal thing, there are some cultures where I’m required by law of a good host to look out for you now.”

“Oh, really?”

“I’m taking it loosely, but in this instance I’m thinking there are other ways I can take care of you.”

She stares at him. “That’s the worst pick-up line I’ve ever heard. You’re lucky I already took off my bra while you were cooking.”

He tries to keep his gaze trained on her face, like he’s been doing casually all night (he is not the kind of guy to stare at a woman’s chest), but he loses that battle and glances down.

Yeah. No bra. He’d missed that.

 _Sam_ , he tells himself, _there’s being a gentleman, and there’s being a fool_.

“How do women do that, anyway?” he asks instead. “I was watching your reflection in the pans. I didn’t see that.”

“I would point out how creepy that is if I didn’t admire it from a professional perspective. It’s actually kind of a turn-on.”

“That I’m more paranoid than I look or that my cookware is so clean you can see yourself in it?”

“Both. I’m attracted to cleanliness and paranoia in equal measures.”

Sam laughs. “I see why you’d like Steve, then.”

“Do you like him?” She’s swirling the wine more than she’s drinking it at this point, watching him over the rim of the glass.

“I’ve gotten kind of attached to his plane-jumping white ass,” he admits.

She laughs, too. Then she puts down her glass, stands, and walks around the table, staring at him. She puts her hand in his collar and tugs him forward just enough to get the hint.

She kisses like she talks, pointedly and with a bite, but her hands remain gentle on his neck and shoulders, and when she leans her hip into him it’s casual, relaxed. The air between them smells like their shared bottle of wine.

When he drops his hands onto her waist, she sighs, tilting a little to expose her neck. He takes the hint. His tongue traces her pulse, drawing up 'til the hinge of her jaw, nipping her ear before he sucks kisses back down. With one hand he tugs her closer, parting her thighs with his knee, and the other dips into the back of her jeans, mapping the lacy edge of her underwear. He's feeling pretty good about things when they part, confident and floating, and then she snorts indelicately, shaking her head.

He blinks. "Yes?"

"What is it with guys and yanking my underwear up my ass like it's the height of passion?" she asks, still laughing, rusty-sounding but genuine. "There are other things I'd much rather have there."

He thinks for a moment before he answers, eyebrows drawn together. "This happens a lot?" he asks finally.

"It's the one go-to move every man is sure to think is all his and it never is."

"How come no guy's ever done that to me?"

"I could do it to you, if you want."

He shifts in his seat, then gently nudges her away to stand. He whirls her around to take his place in the chair and widens his stance to bring himself closer to her level, then slides his palms under hers, kisses the backs of her hands, and plants them firmly on the seat of his pants.

She laughs again, smile lighting up her eyes. One hand tugs him closer, mirroring him, but then it slips between his legs to rub circles on the inside of his thigh. He shivers, corner of his mouth turning up. Her other hand lingers on his hip a moment before she finger-walks it around to the small of his back, then slips it down into his pants. She very tenderly skates it back and forth, fingers like velvet, face utterly serious, before she drags one finger up the crack of his ass, pressing lightly on his underwear. The material hikes up, but he doesn't mind.

"You're not really making your case," he murmurs, hissing a little as her other hand trails farther up his leg.

"Hush, flyboy, I'm working."

Her nails scrape up his cheeks, hiking the cotton even more, before she works her hand back up to the waistband and starts to tug in slow, languid motions, rolling it into her palm.

"I'm feeling the romance," he says.

She shakes her head, mouth shut tight on a laugh. It's all the way up now and it's not so bad.

Except, you know, where it pinches a little. And it's a little awkward. And it's kind of the opposite of getting their clothes off.

It's not a turn-off, but it's not really putting him in the mood.

Actually, scratch that. The higher it goes, the more distracting it gets.

She must see it in his face, because the laugh bursts free and she lets go, leaning forward to kiss his chest and cup him in apology. "I've stretched out so many good pairs of panties from overzealous boyfriends."

He is going to ask Natasha about this later. He kind of has to know now.

Right this moment, though, he has other interests. "Why don't we just go all naked, all the time?"

She rucks up his shirt in the front and draws idle patterns on his skin, simple shapes, with her head tilted to the side, hair swinging in a curtain over half of her face. She brushes it back with a couple of fingers, then, in the same motion, yanks the top few buttons of her blouse open, looking him straight in the eye.

That's more like it.

He reaches down to get the rest of the buttons, pausing a moment to make sure it's cool. She leans forward. Her breasts sway freely in her loosened top, grazing his knuckles. He can feel their warmth through the cotton-silk blend. It relaxes his muscles a fraction to feel the heat of another body seep into his, and he breathes deep. Past the wine he smells jasmine and citrus and a familiar but unspecified scent that triggers memories of ordnance, but not of what kind. He hasn't forgotten for a moment what her job was, that she's as dangerous and effective as he is (if not more so), but he's glad that, whatever she's doing now, it's maybe not as much of a desk job as she'd have him believe; she doesn't seem the type to stand that for long.

He leans in to rub his lips over the skin of her clavicle before he's done, and stays there to nuzzle into her shoulder while his fingers resume their work. The shirt slithers to the floor when he pushes it from her shoulders, a whisper of fabric and then a soft thump, and he realizes he's closed his eyes. He opens them like waking from a dream.

As promised, she's bare underneath the shirt. He takes her in.

She runs her fingers over his hair, an almost fond look in her eyes, then tips his chin up so she can kiss him softly, practically chaste.

Then she yanks his belt and pants open, startling him, sinking to the floor to drag them down and unlace his boots.

He stands there for a moment, awkwardly unsure what to do with himself, before he rolls his eyes and shucks off his shirt as quickly as possible. He kicks off his boots when they're loosened and his pants with them, shoving them under the table with his toes. She's already worked her pants off and he's sorry he missed it, but she's clearly left the panties for him to contend with.

They're cute on her, dark blue and simple with a little lace at the top. When she stands up he hooks his fingers into them, snapping the waistband back a little just because, and then slides them slowly, very slowly, down her legs, sliding down her body along with them until he's kneeling at her feet now. He likes this view of her: she's all long lines of muscle and pale skin shiny with small scars in odd places, the undersides of her breasts heavy and rounded at this angle and her nipples only slightly visible as just a tantalizing edge, hips flared and the planes of her abdomen shadowed from the light behind her. It's a mental snapshot he's going to keep. Powerful is a good look on her. He's happy wherever she wants him.

She backs up a little to lean her shoulders into the wall behind her, spreading her feet apart.

"I thought you'd never ask," he says, his voice a honey-drawl. He shuffles forward, wrapping his long fingers around her thighs; he kisses the top of each before he moves inward, kissing the strip of skin above where her underwear had rested.

He palms her sex, fingers pointed up, and rubs gently with the heel of his hand, small circles and undulating pressure. His fingertips ripple up and down lightly, more a tease than anything else. When her mouth falls open on a sigh and her heels plant harder into the floor he scoots even closer and turns his hand around, fingers between her legs now, but still he presses on the same spot, only now he dips into her. She's open to him, parting and plump and wet, and he swears he hears chimes in his head every time he gets to feel this with a woman, each proof of their arousal unique and universal at once. Gravity pulls her into him as she slouches, pressing harder.

His fingers slip in the warm slick, and this time when he ripples them she shivers. He leans up to idly run his tongue along her lower belly, firm lines of soft, damp heat that make her arch even though she'd clearly prefer them to be elsewhere. She's playing along, warming up to his methods, and he likes that. He'll give her what she wants, too. They're good together.

When she's had enough teasing, she rests her hand heavily on the back of his neck, suggestive more than demanding. He puts his lips where his hand's been stroking and her back arches like she's been zapped.

He pauses a moment to appreciate that, hoping she can feel his grin.

They stay like this for a long time, longer than he usually gets to, and she's being held up by the wall and Sam's strong sticky hands when he's finished, shoulders slumped down in relief and face flushed and shiny.

She runs her fingers through her hair and blows out a breath. "That isn't what I was expecting when I picked you up."

"Wasn't it?" He sits back on his heels, steadying her carefully before pulling his hands away, and the one that's glossy with her arousal he uses to palm himself. He's dutifully ignored it this whole time, totally committed to her relaxation and convincing her that he was a good decision, and maybe if they see each other after this she'll take care of him on a bad day. That seems to be their give and take, equal and opposite.

Her foot nudges its way up his leg, idly searching out more contact, and she waits with her toes on his knee. He's a little touched by the gesture.

He turns around to lean into the wall, legs stretched out in front of him, and smoothing a hand down her thigh until she sits down, too, right beside him. Their sweaty thighs press together and she loops her ankle across his, gently massaging.

She's riding the high of two pretty spectacular orgasms and he's a patient man, so he closes his eyes, hikes one knee up to rest his forearm on it, and shuts his eyes to listen to her breathing and inhale deeply.

Her hand snakes into his lap anyway. When he cuts a glance at her, her eyes are still closed, her head resting on his shoulder, body relaxed and almost melting into him.

He smiles and tips his head back into the wall, shutting his eyes again and settling in for a slow, relaxed session, the luxury of which he never really has the time to enjoy anymore. His people these days are more of a high-octane crowd, and while that's great and he loves them fiercely and he's had some of the best sex of his life in the past year or so, it's in his nature to sit back and look for the quiet moments like this, not rushing toward a goal (and not being shot at either, which _has_ interfered with his sex life at least twice ever since taking up with this crowd. The things he puts up with, honestly).

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and tucks her hair behind her ear. Her pulse is jumping through his skin at the juncture of her collar and the swell of her ribs where she leans into him, pounding out a rhythm that he's catching up to as she slows down.

In one graceful movement she's in his lap and her mouth is on his. Her hands frame his face. She tastes like wine and he tastes like her and she doesn't seem to mind.

He manages to shuffle his hips forward, which is awkward with a lap full of female action hero and doubly so when she's unwilling to detach her lips from his, and she sits further down until she's pressed against him, a searing and welcome heat.

He's got condoms (and lube, and various other relevant objects, not all of which were procured by him) stashed in almost every drawer in his house by this point, so he feels around somewhere behind him and off to the side until he finds the end table and yanks it open. His wrist is twisted backward and clumsy, until she reaches in to grab one herself. He gives her flank a grateful squeeze and slides his hands up and down the lean muscles of her back. He's thinking about maybe turning her around and giving her a massage, but she takes care of that line of thought when she neatly rolls on the condom and slides down after it, firmly seated with him deep inside of her.

He sucks in a breath and blinks hard and cradles her to him. "That happened fast."

"I work fast," she murmurs into his shoulder, wriggling a little.

He pats her ass. He wants to say something deep or funny or sexy. "Yeah, you do," is what he actually says.

She glances up at him before ducking her head back down. Her breathing is loud in his ears and slow against his palm where her chest rises and falls. He hasn't paid nearly enough attention to her breasts and he's going to fix that right now. As she rolls her hips and wraps her arms around his neck, he cups and lightly massages them, alternating. When he rubs a callused thumb across a nipple her rhythm stutters, so of course he does it again.

His ass is starting to go numb in this position. He eases her back until he's laying over her, but she smoothly rolls them over so she's on top once again and he's flat on his back.

He laughs. "Okay, then." He makes a show of putting his hands behind his head to relax, letting her call the shots.

She rests her hand on his chest to support herself, heavier than she looks, strong and poised, and he's happy to let her run the show. She flicks his nipples and she has calluses, too, in the same places.

The angle has changed and she speeds up now. Honestly, after all this time, she could blow on him and he'd be done for, but he's holding out to see if he can get her there again. Whatever she needs, he's good for it. For a little while, anyway.

She leans down to kiss him deeply again. Her nails scratch at his chest, light but persistent. There's a tight, winding sensation growing, pulling him inward and pushing him higher. He leans up to grab the back of her neck as carefully as he can in his haste and holds her there, his other hand going to the small of her back to grind her down into him, and that's it for her.

"Thank you," he groans out, still clutching her to him. His body tenses and holds until he slowly relaxes back into the floor.

He lays with his eyes closed and Sharon sprawled comfortably across his chest for a moment, the only sound his blood pounding in his ears for a few seconds.

"Thank you?"

"What?" He cracks one eye open at her. She's squinting at him, face neutral. "Oh, you're welcome."

"No, I mean ... really? Thank you?"

"I said that?"

"You did indeed."

He frowns, leaning up on his elbows. "I suppose I can't say my mama raised me to have manners, can I?"

"Now would be a bad time, usually, but I'll allow it, 'cause you're cute and I like your mama stories."

"If it helps," he offers, reaching out to tuck her sweaty hair behind her ear again, "I was really thanking every deity I could think of."

"It does, actually."

He smiles at her, turning to the side when she rolls off, and he props his head on his hand. "But, you know, thank you. My whole week just got a thousand times better."

"Really good orgasms will do that for you," she says kindly, voice husky, allowing him to lean his body into her and draw her hip closer. "I'm living proof of that right now."

"Sage words," he agrees, "but I was thinking that halfway through dinner. I mean, your bra was off by then, right? It could have been that."

She laughs and leans into him a little more.

"But I don't think so. It's cool if you didn't get that. I had a great time." He pauses, then looks at her seriously. "But I'd like to see you again. I like you a lot."

"What about your harem?" she asks, kissing his neck without real intent. "It sounds complicated, logistically."

"The extra elbows can be. But they live for complicated. They'd love you. If you want that."

She hums thoughtfully, then leans back to look at him. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay. I just have one question."

He kisses her quickly. "What is it?"

"Does Steve say thank you when he comes? You got it from him, right?"

He rolls back over her and buries his face in her neck, laughing, neither confirming nor denying.


End file.
